Finally Found?
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Dr Kate McCrae's thoughts as the Palomino approaches the Cygnus... will she finally find her father?


I don't own The Black Hole, but I do own this one-shot and I just had the idea of writing how Kate McCrae felt about the possibility of finding her long-lost father after an absence of 20 years.

Please let me know what you think.

* * *

Finally Found?

The moment V.I. picked up the mysterious ship orbiting the very edge of the Black Hole and the image was sent down to the holograph projector, Dr Kate McCrae had been certain she recognised the silhouette. It just nagged her in the back of her mind, but the most important question on her mind was how a ship could orbit a black hole when nothing, light, time, planets and other bodies, could survive it incredible gravitational pull.

Alex Durrant looked at the image on the holograph with a mix of emotions - puzzlement, worry, awe, and fascination all rolled into one, though she couldn't blame him since she felt the same way.

"But… how could anybody be out here ahead of us?" Alex stuttered out his question, but Kate didn't reply though she thought the question was a little naive considering how many ships were sent out from Earth during the Golden Age period when faster than light propulsion was first pioneered and finally perfected to allow humans the chance to explore new worlds and increase humanity' knowledge of the universe.

More than a dozen ships had disappeared, either because they had exploded due to some kind of internal failure, or they had just vanished without a trace.

It was cruel of her, but she couldn't help but sneer inwardly at Alex's rather stupid question since dozens of human ships had gone further into space before they were recalled.

Recalled…

The word reverberated around her head, and she took a long, good look at the black form sitting in the middle of the 3D hologram.

There was something familiar about it…

Another, far more basic silhouette reminiscent of a space station set in a triangular formation with three prominent sphere-like modules appeared as Holland, Pizer and V.I. tried to identify the mysterious ship; Kate recognised it before V.I. spoke. "Arcturius 10, United Kingdom," the robot said before a second silhouette appeared in the holograph, a slightly smaller but wider ship.

"Liberty 7, United States," V.I. said before the computer changed the image again, this time to a ring-shaped spacecraft replaced it with a central control column running through, the sheer mass filling the holograph.

Again it didn't match even as V.I. spoke again, "Russian experimental space station, series five."

VINC.E.N.T replaced the Russian space station image for a new one, this time showing a more basic interstellar-interplanetary spacecraft that Kate recognised as a Sahara Module, though she wasn't sure of the exact make.

"France, Sahara Module 5-3," V.I. provided the answer, but the list of ships which had either gone missing or were considered to have been destroyed was starting to reawaken the memory in Kate's mind that had nothing to do with her own grasp of history. No, it was something more personal.

Another silhouette appeared, this time showing another space station type spaceship that Kate didn't recognise off the top of her head, though at the moment she didn't really care since she was starting to suspect….

_Oh please, let it be what I think it is,_ Kate begged, _please, please. Let it be _**_him. _**

She realised she had missed the robot she was connected to thanks to the ESP transceiver embedded in her skull say which ship the last silhouette belonged to, but when the next one appeared, Kate lost her interest as she gasped in both delight and surprise; delight that she was correct, and surprise because it was actually here.

"United States, Space Probe One," V.I. listed mechanically, but Kate instantly held up her finger and pointed at the projector.

"That's it," she said, though she didn't need to since the computer and the robot linked to it matched the two together and glowed red as the match was found.

"USS Cygnus," the robot said before he asked more urgently, "Dr Kate, wasn't that the ship your father was on?"

But Kate barely heard her robot friend's question as she was silent for a moment, too numb to speak. It wasn't until the image moved as the newly identified Cygnus spun around so she, Harry, and Alex could see the design of the long-lost spaceship which had gone missing all of those years ago.

"USS Cygnus," Kate said, speaking as robotically as V.I. because she was sure if she let out what it was she was really thinking right then she would be breaking down in tears of joy and hope. "It's mission; to discover habitable life in outer space. Same as ours."

Over the communicator channel she heard Holland tell V.I. to hail the Cygnus, but while Kate was jolted, realising she had not really given any thought at all if the long-lost crew had survived however the question of what the hell they were doing so close to the black hole when the thing had probably eaten half a million star systems already due to its strong gravity was anybody's guess.

The thought of speaking to her father again….

Kate nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the scanners being deployed, but she put it out of her mind since it was standard procedure.

Not taking her eyes off of the holographic silhouette of the Cygnus, she began recapping the history of the Cygnus.

"They were recalled to Earth 20 years ago," she said as she remembered the news articles she had read when she'd been younger, "their mission considered a failure."

She fell silent for a moment as she remembered those articles again. Many of them had been written by Harry Booth, the same Harry Booth who had boarded the Palomino all those months ago because he wanted to be there when humanity first encountered alien life on other worlds. She put the reporter out of her mind for the time being as she wondered how the crew of the Cygnus had reacted to the recall command, how her father had felt when the mission he had devoted himself to had been deemed a failure in itself.

Harry Booth's voice broke through her thoughts. "How that must have galled Dr Hans Reinhardt," the reporter said, but there was something in his voice she couldn't identify straightaway as she was too busy looking at the projection of the Cygnus. She didn't care, either.

Kate was only barely aware of Alex shifting. "Did you ever meet Commander Reinhardt?"

Kate had to stop herself from laughing as she momentarily wondered to herself if she should say she had met the legendary space exploring scientist who was a maverick of his work and had been fanatical to the point of madness about ensuring it was completed at all costs, and he didn't care one bit who knew it, but she decided against it. She was too busy thinking to herself about what had happened to the Cygnus. The discovery of the ship after twenty years was reawakening old memories of loss and heartbreak for Kate.

She heard Booth's chuckle as the reporter was clearly lost in the throes of some very well remembered memories. "Collided with him would a more accurate description," the reporter said.

Kate only just managed to hold off from rolling her eyes in disdain.

"A legend," Alex said, though Kate could pick up a defensive tone in her fellow scientist's voice; Reinhardt was one of the most well known and controversial figures in human scientific history, and for the wrong reasons, but Kate knew many scientists other than Alex who idolised Reinhardt and studied his work religiously.

Booth snorted dismissively. "So he believed. Reinhardt had the knack of making his own ambitions seem like a matter of national pride. Why, he talked the space appropriations committee into the costliest fiasco of all time and refused to admit failure. He ignored his recall."

Kate wished she could burn Harry Booth with her glare, but she decided it wasn't worth the effort. To her, Booth represented the type of reporter who specialised in calling space research a waste of money, and as a result, Kate had learnt to despise but somehow manage to tolerate them since the demand for colonising planets and researching outer space was growing with each month.

But that was not the reason she disliked Booth. Oh no.

Her dislike for the man went back a long way, back twenty years when Harry Booth, with disgusting relish and glee, had fired off a number of articles about the costly waste of time the Cygnus had been. From a financial perspective, Kate knew Booth had a point considering the facilities the ship possessed which the Palomino and other ships of her class lacked. But why did he need to spout off about it so much? Was money the only thing the man was interested in?

"Maybe not. Maybe it never got through," Alex stated, but he was only spouting off an idea that had existed for a long time.

"That ship just… just disappeared," Kate said, looking at the holographic image on the projector with hope shining through; she knew the chances of her father still being alive were remote, but there was still the chance someone was onboard the Cygnus, right? If she could just find out what had happened to her father…. "They've never been seen again."

The desperation in her suddenly broke through one of the cracks in the wall she had built over the years to stop herself from hoping that one day she would get out and finally find her father again after all this time.

Frank McCrae had been proud of becoming part of the Cygnus crew. They all were. They would be pioneers, heading deeper and deeper into space with the largest, and the most powerful FTL engines available. Today many people studying space went over books which contained knowledge gleaned on the voyages of the Cygnus. Her father had compiled a collection of mp4 clips and photographs, and she had the collection with her at all times so she could look at it now and then, so she could remember.

Unfortunately, her desperation caught the attention of the reporter, though Kate didn't realise it automatically since she was too busy studying the image of her father's lost ship with hope and desire he was still alive.

"And how do you feel about the Cygnus' reappearance, Dr McCrae?" Booth asked, a slow smirk on his face, though she didn't know why he was smirking.

The question snapped Kate out of her thoughts and she looked at the reporter questioningly as if she didn't know what he wanted to hear, but Alex seemed to know. "Harry," he warned, and she suddenly realised where the reporter was going and she realised what was going on and what the slimy man was getting at, further lowering her opinion of him if that was possible.

"Mr Booth," Kate snapped, her voice cold and razor sharp enough to catch the reporters' attention. "How I feel is none of your business. But I will say this; I have wanted to find out what happened to the Cygnus for years. When you come to write this story, which we know you will, put down I only feel hope."

The reporter fell silent, but Kate pushed the obnoxious man out of her mind as she studied the Cygnus. Despite the Palomino being so small, it hadn't been difficult for her to put distance between her and the reporter. Booth hadn't had anything she wanted to hear then, and she wasn't going to let him spoil the moment for her now the Cygnus was right there, right in front of her after being missing for twenty years and the trail had gone cold when the next wave of FTL ships had gone out into the galaxy to explore it.

The disappearance of the Cygnus had been a mystery, and many ships had tried to find the ship by visiting the same position the ship was last reported in. But they had found nothing, and now the Cygnus back home was considered to be a legend on the same wavelength as the Mary Celeste or the Flying Dutchman.


End file.
